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The case for streaming just about everything — from the NFL draft to 'Parks and Recreation'

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“Bob’s Burgers” |There’s a lot of dysfunction on this list. Maybe it makes us feel better about our own families in comparison. Bob and Linda Belcher may not be the greatest parents in the world, but like Marge and Homer Simpson, there's no doubt that they love their family. And despite their antics, the kids love them. Most of the episodes take place in the restaurant, school or the apartment above the restaurant. We know where we are. And we like it. How to watch: Fox, stream on Hulu. Courtesy of Fox

“The Sopranos” | The greatest drama of all time? Depends on whom you ask. “The Wire” gets a lot of votes, as do “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men." But without this, they don’t exist. James Gandolfini, dead solid perfect as Tony, and David Chase, the show’s creator, used to say they did everything they could to make Tony unattractive. He kills people, he cheats on his wife, he’s a criminal, he kills family members. But Gandolfini is so compelling you can’t stop watching. He runs two families and isn’t very good at either. But his McMansion is one of my favorite places to visit. How to watch: Stream on HBO. AP Photo/HBO, Will Hart

“Black-ish” | Anthony Anderson is ostensibly the star of the show; he works in advertising and his wife (Tracee Ellis Ross) is a doctor. But it’s a genuine ensemble, a show about a family in which every member has value — and does occasionally stupid things (it is a comedy). They’re a successful black family, and yes, race is a part of the show (see: title) — it tackles thorny issues while celebrating culture. A fun bunch to be around, and you might learn something. How to watch: ABC, stream on Hulu. Kelsey McNeal/AP Photo

"Arrested Development"|Mitch Hurwitz's comedy was like nothing before it or since, a true freak show of a family whose members couldn't stand each other, but were so co-dependent they couldn't get away from each other, either. The writing is brilliant, as is the cast, which includes Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor and Will Arnett. The deadpan voiceover by Ron Howard (also a producer) has given birth to many a meme. Oh — it's also hilarious, one of the funniest things ever on TV. How to watch: Stream on Netflix. F. SCOTT SCHAFER/FOX

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” | Let’s take a trip in the wayback machine. Mary Richards was a single woman — she was supposed to have been divorced but producers thought audiences would be turned off, so they just had her arrive freshly broken up with her boyfriend — working as a TV news producer. That may not sound unique not, but when the show debuted, in 1970, it was revolutionary. She’s surrounded by a cast of characters — Lou Grant (Ed Asner), Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) and others who are recognizable sitcom types. But the performances are so great they seem more like … well, friends. How to watch: Stream on Hulu. CBS

“Atlanta” |Is there anything Donald Glover can’t do? He created the show, and stars as Earn, a Princeton dropout, who along with his cousin Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), a rapper, try to get by. Glover often steps to the side, allowing brilliant performers like LaKeith Stanfield, who plays the loopy Darius, to shine. Alongside the makeshift family of characters, there’s room for twisted genius like the “Teddy Perkins” episode in season two, which is more mind-blowing the less you know going in. How to watch: Stream on FX on Hulu. Guy D'Alema, FX

“Friday Night Lights” | Teams are surrogate families to begin with. Lucky few have someone like Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) at the helm. And his wife (Connie Britton) is just as strong. There’s a weird murder twist in there somewhere that’s best ignored. The beauty in this show — which you do not have to like, or even understand, football to obsess over — is how much we grow to care about the characters. How to watch: Stream on Hulu, Amazon Prime. Paul Drinkwater, NBC

“ER” | Speaking of revolutionary … The pace of the show, set in a busy Chicago hospital, doesn’t seem as breakneck now as it did when it debuted in 1994. But this show has everything: a diverse cast (Dr. Kerry Weaver was one of the earlier-out gay characters on TV), melodrama, humor, tragedy, romance, failed romance, lots and lots of gory emergency procedures and George Clooney. But the best relationship in the show was between Dr. Benton (Eriq La Salle) and Carter (Noah Wyle), as Carter grew as a doctor under Benton’s tough love. How to watch: Stream on Hulu. CHRIS HASTON, NBC

“The Americans” | OK, they're not your traditional family. Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) and his wife Elizabeth (Keri Russell, superb) are actually Russian spies, whose faux marriage turns into something approximating the real thing. Their children don’t exactly benefit from this arrangement and in fact, there is some real misery here. To say nothing of deadly violence. But it’s family nonetheless, with some of the same mundane problems all families have. Except for that whole Cold War villain bit. How to watch: Stream on Amazon Prime. Jeffrey Neira, FX

“Fresh Off the Boat” | Nahnatchka Khan’s comedy, about a Taiwanese-American family that moves to lily-white Orlando in the 1990s, is loosely based on the experiences of Eddie Huang, the chef, who is an executive producer of the show (which didn’t stop him from occasionally complaining about it). When it debuted in 2015, it was the first Asian-American sitcom in 20 years. That makes it important, not good. What makes it good is seeing the experiences of the Huang family from their perspective. What makes it hilarious are the writing and the performances. It goes too broad on occasion (several, actually), but like any good family comedy, you’ll recognize these characters, and maybe a little of yourself. How to watch: ABC, stream on Hulu. John Fleenor, ABC

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” | Joss Whedon turned his dopey movie into one of the great portrayals of the teen experience. High school is full of monsters. It’s just that here, they’re actually monsters. Sarah Michelle Geller is good as Buffy, but the show only gets great when the other characters come to the fore — particularly Willow (Alyson Hannigan), the teenage witch who is Buffy’s best friend. (Speaking of teenage witches, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” almost made the list, but it owes too much to “Buffy.”) Great as the characters can be, the writing is the real star here. How to watch: Stream on Hulu. THE WB/RICHARD CARTRIGHT, Richard Cartwright/The WB

“Six Feet Under” | In which the family dysfunction is florid. The Fisher family runs a funeral home in Los Angeles; the father (the great Richard Jenkins) gets run over by a bus in the first episode. So you see what you’re dealing with here. There are innumerable hookups and breakups and always a couple of bodies to prepare in each episode, but again, it’s the performances that sell it, particularly that of Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Lauren Ambrose and Frances Conroy as the Fisher family. And there is a scene in which Jeremy Sisto, playing a man dealing with mental illness, says he wants to cry but his medicine won’t allow it, that is as sad as anything I’ve ever seen. The show lost its way for a while but rebounded for one of the great series finales, ever. How to watch: HBO. HBO

“The Office” |OK, the British version may be better, but the American version could be the ultimate surrogate family. Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is an awful boss with a good-ish heart, but it’s the constellation of misfit toys that surround him at Dunder-Mifllin, a paper company, that make the show so welcoming, even when it’s at its most cringeworthy. Which is often. How to watch: Stream on Netflix. CHRIS HASTON/NBC

“Seinfeld” | No hugging, no learning. That was Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld’s famous mantra for their iconic sitcom, which was, so they said, about nothing. So is regular life for the most part, which is why checking in with Jerry, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander) and Kramer (Michael Richards) is such a treat. They aren’t especially pleasant people, but they’re sort of all they have. Misery loves company, as they say. It took a while to get going, overstayed its welcome and suffered a horrible finale. But when it was on its game, “Seinfeld” is as funny as anything that’s ever been on TV. And those dopes are why. How to watch: Stream on Hulu. Columbia/TriStar Television Distribution/NBC

“The West Wing” |Liberal wish-fulfillment? Maybe, though these days it’s a hymn to competence. Aaron Sorkin’s walking-and-talking White House drama is smart and aspirational. Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet wasn’t even supposed to be a main character. Things changed, but the ensemble is what makes it work (that and the writing). Like any great show, your favorite character changes depending on the episode. Ah, let’s stay here a while. How to watch: Stream on Netflix. Steve Shapiro/NBC

Everything. Whatever event you think won’t work as a Zoom meeting or whatever? Stop worrying. Try it. Because, for the most part, so far so good. The “Parks and Recreation” stay-at-home episode couldn't come soon enough. (Thursday night, actually.)

Like many other people, I’ve watched the two episodes of “Saturday Night Live at Home” that have aired so far. They weren’t great, but they had as many good moments as a regular show would have. (Plus: Brad Pitt!)

I also watched the first round of the NFL Draft, and not only because I wanted to see what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s basement looked like. (Frankly, I was disappointed. The guy makes, what, $40 million a year? It looked like the set of “Wayne’s World.”) In addition to Kliff Kingsbury’s ridiculously swank digs, it was also kind of cool to see the players at home, the coaches and general managers in their various setups.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t care, nor do I ever, about the quality of the livestream. (Then again, I was a big fan of the lo-fi movement in music in the 1990s, so keep that in mind.) I just like seeing this stuff because no matter what the event, no matter how it’s done, it is a legitimate example of making the most of a difficult situation.

And how often does that happen?

There is a real charm to a lot of this. It’s appealing for several reasons.

One is our capacity for normalizing things, to say nothing of our desperation to do so. Think about it.

A month ago seeing someone in the supermarket wearing a mask and gloves to shop would be unusual. Now not seeing it seems weird (and not wearing it irresponsible).

Your local weather forecaster is predicting surface-of-the-sun temperatures from her kitchen? Sure, why not? Who even notices that anymore? The number of in-their-homes mini-concert choices grows by the day, and it’s really cool, especially when the whole band participates; I’ve already trained my eye to scan a Zoom grid to focus on particular members. I had no idea how much I would enjoy Willie Nelson and his sons, but I did.

Seeing other people at home is comforting, whether they're Jimmy Kimmel or Kliff Kingsbury

Curiosity plays a part, too.

Again, who doesn’t want to see what a famous person’s house looks like? Or how they want to present themselves to the world? That’s the thing — the people on-camera control what we see, and it can be fascinating to watch. It paid off big time for Kingsbury, who looked like a model in a rich-hipster edition of Architectural Digest.

A look at Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury in the team's draft night war room.(Photo: Courtesy)

But if you’ll forgive the armchair psychology, I think the biggest reason watching all of this is so comforting is because no matter what you’re watching, you are seeing people confined to their homes.

Just like the rest of us.

Sure, Jimmy Kimmel’s house may be nicer than mine, but so what? We’re all in the same boat. Well, we’re in different boats. His is more like a nice yacht and I’ve got a dinghy, comparatively. But we’re all in the same sea. It’s a sea of unrest, and watching these events and shows and specials provides a nice little life preserver.